QB battle: At this point, flipping a coin might be the best way to determine this race. While it might seem that Jacoby Brissett holds a tiny advantage over Jeff Driskel because of his experience, Muschamp insisted they are still even, and finding the better leader during summer workouts could determine everything. But even that will be tough, he added. Right now, he said, both have the intangibles and the natural leadership skills to be successful, and he thinks players respect and respond to each equally.

"Their competition is going to make each other better, and that's going to make our offense better, which will make our football team better," Muschamp said.

Blake will have his fourth different opening-day quarterback throwing to him...

Clint Moseley, who was slowed by a sore shoulder in the spring, is healthy again. Blake said Moseley "can be a successful quarterback in the SEC."

Kiehl Frazier "had a great spring. I'm very proud how he's stepped up and how much a leader he has grown into. You can tell he's very comfortable in this offense."

"I commend Zeke Pike coming here early and trying to grind with us," he said. "That's not an easy thing to do coming straight out of high school. It had to be kind of a shock for him when he first got here. He's grown up a lot since he's been here."

The SEC gets a bad rap when it comes to throwing the football, but the reality is that the league has produced a first-round selection at quarterback in eight of the past 10 NFL drafts. And we’re talking six different teams.

Only two quarterbacks — starter Tyler Russell and backup Dak Prescott — are on scholarship for the 2012 season. MSU added a well-recruited walkon, Jamil Golden, at the start of the summer and might suddenly be a factor in the fall.

The Bulldogs were in dire need of an extra quarterback following the departure of Dylan Favre in December, and got a late start on the recruiting trail.

Although Smith is the overall fan-favorite to take over the position this year on a full-time basis, there’s a small but loud minority of fans pulling for incoming freshman Patrick Towles. The 4-star recruit out of Fort Thomas, KY wasn’t mentioned by Phillips yesterday in the particular comment he made above when discussing the QB position, but almost certainly Towles was simply an error of omission, someone who Joker intended to talk about but did not. Or possibly, the omission of Towles was not a mistake at all and Joker has plans of redshirting his top recruit of the incoming class this season.

I don’t actually think that there is a real competition for the #1 starting spot this season. Max Smith should end up being the starting quarterback without much controversy on Sept. 2nd.

Driskel played in five games and completed 16 of 34 passes for 148 yards and two interceptions. We broke the stats down from the 17 drives in which he either threw a pass or carried the ball. In those 17 drives, the Gators managed just 21 first downs, scored only 10 points, and turned the ball over four times. Driskel accounted for three of those (two interceptions and a fumble).

Sumlin and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury are installing their Air Raid offense with which Houston had so much success.

The offense, which was popularized by Hal Mumme and Mike Leach, involves heavy use of the shotgun, lots of passing and in Sumlin and Kingsbury's version, a breakneck tempo.

More than anything, the pace at which the offense will be the key mission for whomever wins the quarterback job. In the last four years at Houston, the Cougars averaged more than 78 plays per game. That tempo helped the Cougars find advantages against defenses not accustomed to moving at that pace.

The contenders are Kiehl Frazier and Clint Moseley. The judges are offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler and head coach Gene Chizik. The decision could come a week into fall practice. Or maybe it has been made? If so, Loeffler and Chizik aren't telling, so the race for the starting quarterback job will soak up much of the focus early on.

But there are other questions -- like who replaces 1,000-yard rusher Mike Dyer...

"Everyone wants to ask me about the quarterback position," Muschamp said. "I feel really good about that position because we have two players that are competing that are going to make each other better, our offense better and our team better."

Muschamp reiterated throughout the spring and summer that time won't be a factor when it comes to making a decision.

"We'll know when the time is right," Muschamp added.

For Brissett, that time was week five of last season, when he stepped into the starting role after starter John Brantley was injured. He started back-to-back games. The first start was a trial by fire, with Brissett matching up against No. 1 LSU in Baton Rouge. He finished the season by completing 46 percent of his passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns.

Driskel saw action in five games last season, but he never started. He completed 47 percent of his passes for 148 yards and two interceptions.

In that there is a quarterback competition, this interested observer puts the opening pecking order as such:

■ No. 1 is sophomore Maxwell Smith, who finished last season as the starting quarterback, if you don’t count the win over Tennessee in which a wide receiver (Matt Roark, now graduated) started at quarterback.

■ No. 2 is Morgan Newton, who began last season as the starting quarterback, more or less lost the job, was later injured but is now healthy again. More or less.

■ No. 3 is true freshman Patrick Towles, who played in 45 games as a high school quarterback and happened to win 44.

When will Gene Chizik name a starting quarterback for this season? Auburn players talk and act like they know Kiehl Frazier will be the starter for the Tigers.

Doug Segrest makes the assessment that if he looks like the starter, talks like a starter then Frazier must be No. 1 for the Tigers. Jeff says that Clint Moseley was the incumbent and wonders what Frazier did to win the job last season.

Joker Phillips has too many quarterbacks and not enough. He has more than he can use, but no one he can trust implicitly. He is like the excessively patient pocket passer, dithering so long that he is likely to get sacked.

Less than three weeks away from the start of his third season, the embattled Kentucky football coach — and yes, this may be a redundancy — has not yet designated his starter for the Wildcats’ ominous opener at Louisville.

Some of this may be by design. Every minute Louisville coach Charlie Strong...

Perhaps it's time to go to plan b: Make another large and generous donation of (S)Cam's preacher daddy's church and he could play on Saturday's. SN would still be available to play for Carolina on Sundays. Works out great for everyone.

Auburn scrimmaged in front of its football donors in Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday, but a lot of it was for entertainment purposes only.

The first team defense mostly watched the serious work. And it was another scrimmage in which Clint Moseley was limited to the two-minute offense because of a sore shoulder, which left most of the work for Kiehl Frazier and Jonathan Wallace. Frazier threw a long touchdown pass to Emory Blake. Wallace threw a long TD pass to Ricardo Louis.